


From The Withering Heights

by inlovewithnight



Category: Brothers & Sisters
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-05
Updated: 2010-06-05
Packaged: 2017-10-09 22:36:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/92328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight





	From The Withering Heights

In retrospect, Kevin would look at the whole day as kind of a sick joke, because all the signs right up until about 11:30 in the morning were _good_ ones.

It was the morning after Scotty's night off, which meant that when Kevin's alarm went off, Scotty woke up smiling instead of burrowing his head under the pillow and moaning hopelessly until Kevin turned it off and got away from him. That meant they could do the kinds of things they did when they were happy to see each other first thing in the morning, but _even so_ Kevin beat the local commuter bus to the stoplight and didn't get stuck behind it for half an hour.

And when NPR began the day's parade of depressing shit (recession and pollution and a shooting at a youth center, what a great start to the morning), he kicked it over to the all-80s-all-the-time station that most certainly was _not_ programmed into his favorites, which was right at the beginning of a WHAM! block. He got to work on time. There was still one powdered-sugar doughnut left, and he didn't get any on his tie. It was just _that_ kind of a day.

And it got better. He won the morning fight with Robert's chief of staff. He got the last piece of letterhead in the printer. The daily family crisis was a _funny_ one, for once, with potential for longevity-- Mom had been at Sarah's two nights ago baby-sitting, and Justin had Rebecca over at the house. _Gross or typical? Discuss!_, the word went around the circle, and he got to juggle two phone calls and an e-mail exchange about that at the same time as the six or seven hot topics he had going for work. He was buzzing with caffeine and adrenaline, he was snapping off witty bons mots like the reincarnation of Dorothy Parker, _and_ he had won the office football pool for the week just by guessing.

That is to say, things were _awesome_.

JoAnne, the office manager, stopped by his desk to take his lunch order at 11:00 on the dot. "Did you hear?" she asked solemnly as he pulled out his wallet.

"Did I hear what?" He gave her his broadest, sweetest smile. They absolutely loathed each other.

"About the shooting." She shook her head and pocketed his cash, then shoved a notepad into his face. "Terrible thing. Write down what you want."

"Oh, at the youth center? Yeah, I heard. That's awful." He wrote _no pickles_ and underlined it three times.

"The places we send our kids aren't even safe. Church youth groups, not even safe. Got to do something in this country. Got to get tough on crime."

"Or work to correct the underlying systemic inequalities that foster it." They glared at each other for a moment, until she snatched the notepad back and stomped off. He had a hunch his sandwich was going to arrive completely soaked with brine.

He reached into his inbox and frowned at the packet on top. "Why am I evaluating interns?" he muttered. "Don't we have...interns to evaluate interns? This is not my job. What--"

"Kevin?"

He looked up, startled. "Kitty! Hey. What are you doing here? You're wrong about Justin. And do I really evaluate interns?"

She smiled a little, but it was her interview smile, her fake smile. He knew the difference. "A little too much coffee today, Kevin?"

"Someone brought in hazelnut blend. I had an extra cup to celebrate. What's wrong?"

She crossed her arms tightly over her chest and looked over at Robert's office. "Is he here?"

"Yeah. I think he's on the phone with Senator Lieberman, commiserating over being shunned by an entire party caucus." She didn't even blink, and his personal family-alert monitor went up a notch. "Kitty?"

"I need to talk to him."

"Are you okay? Is it something about the baby?" He stood up and reached to touch her arm, frowning when she pulled away. "Kitty?"

"I'll be back in a minute, okay?" She finally looked at him, and his chest tightened; whatever was wrong was _very_ wrong, and Justin's shenanigans had definitely been replaced as the crisis of the day. "I need to talk to Robert first, but...then I'll be back."

"Well, wait, just...just tell me if you're okay." He was a Walker; he could go from zero to worried sick in no time flat, without breaking a sweat, and this was proving it.

"I'm okay." She smiled again, still fake, and stepped back from his desk. "_I'm_ okay. I promise, I'll tell you everything as soon as I talk to Robert."

He sat down again and started filling out intern evaluations, which at least didn't require him to think at all. He ranked them all as average in every category, except the tall girl with the buck teeth who had agreed with him that the best way to fill out a football pool was by Google Image Searching for the quarterbacks and then ordering them by hotness. He wanted her to go far in Republican party politics. At least far enough to afford Invisalign.

It was 11:38 when Kitty came back and sat down across from his desk again. Her eyes were watery and her face was flushed, and Kevin's anxiety level hit a peak previously reserved for major surgeries and baby brothers in war zones. "Jesus, Kitty, what's going on?"

"There was a shooting last night."

He tossed his pen down to the desk, fear rapidly blurring into irritation. "There's a shooting every night. This is LA."

"This one was at a church youth center."

"Yeah, I heard. Some guy got shot last night after hours and they found him when the morning shift came in today. It's sad, but I don't see what it has to do with..."

Somewhere mid-sentence his breath stopped in his chest. Kitty watched him, her eyes full of sadness, knowing how his mind worked and how he would piece it together.

"With Robert," he finished, his voice just this side of recognizable. "It...it was the Methodist center." She nodded, just a fraction, and he forced himself to take the next step. "It was Jason."

"Yeah," she said softly. "It was."

Kevin looked at Robert's office door, closed tight, blank and unreadable as a stone. "Jason's...that can't be right."

"He died, Kevin."

"How do you know? I mean...I mean _why_ do you know, instead of...I watch a lot of TV, I know how this is supposed to...detectives come find the next of kin, not the next of kin's wife." Rules and procedures suddenly seemed incredibly important, as if the outrage wasn't the death, but the breach of protocol.

"They came to the house pretty much by mistake. Just a fluke. I convinced them to let me tell him to try to...minimize the media impact, for as long as possible." She took a deep breath, curling her fingers around the arm of her chair until they went white. "Which won't be for much longer, so you need to get ready."

"Get ready?" He stared at her in blank confusion then looked down at his desk. "Oh. Because I'm the communications director. You told me because I'm the communications director, not because...right. Right. I need to..."

"I'm sorry, Kevin," she said, catching his gaze again. "I really am. But it's going to be...a mess, and he's not going to be in any shape to handle it, so he needs you, _I_ need you to--"

"I'll handle it." His stomach felt like it was full of cement, wet and rolling slowly and about to set into immobility forever. "I'll call police media relations, I'll coordinate the statement. I'll handle all of it."

"I'm sorry to dump this on you. I know you need to..." Her breath hitched slightly, but she set her shoulders and kept going; ruthless on a mission as always, Kitty. "I know you need to mourn as well, but right now there needs to be someone we trust at the wheel."

"I'll take care of it." He looked over at Robert's office again. "How is he...that's a stupid question, isn't it."

"He asked me to give him a minute." She looked across the space as well, features drawn tight with worry. "I think it's been long enough."

With the kind of perfect timing that only Walkers seemed able to muster, a resounding crash came from behind the closed door. Kevin and Kitty were both on their feet and across the room in a rush, Kevin shoving the door open with his shoulder and Kitty almost tripping over both of their feet to get around him. "Robert!"

Robert sat behind his desk, his face flushed red, staring at the mess of glass on the carpet left from a heavy paperweight meeting the double-pane window. "Someone's going to have to clean that up."

"I'll take care of it," Kevin said. Robert didn't look up. Kitty hurried over to his side, saying something too softly for Kevin to hear. Robert shook his head hard, pushing Kitty's hands away, and her voice changed, getting more pleading.

Kevin hesitated in the doorway for a moment longer, gradually realizing that the two of them had completely forgotten he was there. There was no place for him in that room.

He stepped back, pulling the door closed behind him. His heart was pounding in his chest and his stomach was still twisting like he might be sick, but there was no time right now.

"JoAnne," he said, forcing his voice up into a steady, clear range, "call down and get a janitor up here, but don't let him go in until the Senator comes out. Everyone else, in the conference room, we have a situation."  
**  
The rest of the day was a blur of press releases, keeping his staff on-message, avoiding phone calls, and one very brief appearance at the police station to reassure the news cameras that McCallister had full confidence in the work of the LAPD. He had to borrow a tie from Kyle in fundraising, because the green-patterned one he was wearing, a gift from Scotty, was not at all somber enough. He focused on things like that, details and implications, to the exclusion of anything resembling emotions. There really wasn't any time, and he didn't really have any right.

He got home late, dragging himself up the stairs to the loft and vaguely wondering what the late news would look like. The evening coverage had been strongly sympathetic and blessedly shallow, but it was time to start bracing for whatever was going to come up when people started digging. Would it turn out to be a deliberate targeting, instead of a random tragedy? Would the shooter turn out to be someone injured by something McCallister voted for once? Would someone with an eye on Robert's seat next election issue a statement blaming all of this on the Senator being soft on crime? He should probably set up the DVR and get ready to take notes.

There was also the question, nagging at the back of his mind, if maybe this wasn't because of Robert at all, but not truly random, either. He didn't let himself dwell on that for long, though, because he was supposed to be focusing on his job, here, and his job was Robert and how this related to him, not anything else. The only reason to wonder if it was a hate crime would be if Robert had any hate-crime legislation pending, and he didn't, so it was irrelevant and Kevin was wasting his own time wondering about it.

God, he was too tired to deal with any of this.

He opened the door to the loft and blinked in confusion at the smell of cooking food and the sound of the TV. _What the..._ "Scotty?"

"Hey." Scotty smiled at him from the kitchen, checking whatever was in the oven and shutting the door again. "There you are. I was starting to worry."

"What are you doing home?" The words came out sounding tired, not sharp, and Scotty came over to kiss him lightly on the cheek.

"I've got the night off."

"You had last night off." Kevin took his jacket off and tossed it over the back of the couch, reaching up to loosen his tie. Kyle's tie. Damn. Where was his? _Did I leave it on my desk? No...oh, stuffed it in my briefcase. Get it later._ "Everything okay?"

"I switched with Roscoe for next week. He has to go to a wedding." Scotty was still smiling, cheerful and bright, and Kevin looked at him with vague puzzlement, wondering what was so great. "So I got to take it easy today and download movies for us to watch tonight."

"Oh. Yeah, of course."

Scotty frowned, tilting his head. "Are you all right?"

"I'm tired." Kevin shook his head and managed a small smile. "It was a...tough day. Let me get changed."

"Was he giving you a hard time?"

Kevin stared at him, utterly lost, then remembered that there was only one _he_ in Kevin's life at the moment who annoyed Scotty that much. "Oh." He shook his head again. "No, it...wasn't Robert." He hesitated for a moment, looking at Scotty and thinking about just telling him, just dumping it all out and resting his head on his partner's shoulder and giving in to the tears that had been burning at the back of his throat all day.

"I still don't know how you do it, being surrounded by those people all day every day. No wonder you're tired. I would've gone on a killing spree by now. Except they're all probably armed, so I wouldn't get very far, I guess. Go change. You want a drink?" Scotty moved toward the kitchen, and Kevin blinked at his back, seeing the line of tension there that formed whenever Scotty thought about anything even vaguely related to the name McCallister. Better not to make it worse, better not to start anything.

"Yeah," he said instead, swallowing hard to clear his throat. "Just wine or whatever you're having. I'll be right back."

In the bedroom, he undressed quickly, wishing he could shed the day along with his suit. He shoved Kyle's tie to the bottom of his briefcase and hung the green one up carefully, smoothing the silk between his fingers so it lay perfectly again. He could hear Scotty singing to himself in the kitchen and he pressed his hand against his mouth, forcing back any sound before it could escape.

"Kevin?"

"I'll be right there," he called, shaking his head hard and moving to the dresser. He dug down to the very bottom of the drawer, not realizing what he was looking for until he pulled them free: his oldest, most worn-out pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt he'd had since high school and never quite got around to throwing away.

Scotty laughed when he came out again, handing Kevin a glass of wine and kissing him on the nose. "Wow, you really must be tired. Or coming down with something."

"What?"

"You only wear that ratty old stuff when you're really feeling cruddy. It's your comfort outfit." Scotty's smile wavered, uncertain, when Kevin just stared at him. "Kevin?"

"Nothing." Kevin looked away, forcing himself to take a deep breath past the tightness in his chest. "Sorry. I just...yeah, maybe I am coming down with something. I bet the wine will help. Alcohol kills germs, right?"

"No, not really." Scotty was watching him closely now, worried and insightful, and Kevin was pretty sure that if he looked much more closely it was all going to unravel. He needed a diversion. Something bright and shiny to throw into the air until he could get enough wine down his throat to feel better.

"What are you making? It smells great."

Scotty started talking about the recipe, and the modifications he made to it, and the market where he bought the ingredients, and Kevin drifted over to the couch, tucking his feet up under himself and listening with half of his attention. He liked hearing Scotty talk about cooking; he only understood about one sentence in four, but Scotty's enthusiasm was nice, and he always liked the edible results. Plus once or twice he'd used cooking trivia to trump Republican wives at horrible events.

Scotty went to the kitchen to check the food again, and Kevin flipped through the channels, sipping his wine and staring blankly at re-runs of late-90s sitcoms and commercials for offensive movies that Justin probably wanted to see. He stopped at random, tossing the remote down and finishing the rest of his glass.

"You really look tired," Scotty said, sitting down next to him. "C'mere. Lean on me. Maybe you should take tomorrow off."

"I can't." He did shift and turn to lean back against Scotty, closing his eyes and wishing he could let himself relax against the warmth of Scotty's body. "Have to spend tomorrow dealing with today."

"It's not your job to clean up their messes."

"That's actually exactly what my job is."

"Well, I don't see why you should..."

"Scotty?" He winced as soon as he spoke, hating the catch and unsteadiness in his voice. "Could we not, right now?"

Scotty stilled for a moment, then ran his hand gently over Kevin's head, smoothing his hair back. "Sure. Sorry. No lectures of disapproval unless you're at 100%, okay?"

"Thank you." Kevin turned his head enough to kiss Scotty's shoulder, closing his eyes. They sat in silence, moving through the predictable beats of the sitcom to another commercial break.

"I think I need to go check the food," Scotty said quietly, and Kevin gathered himself to sit up. "I'll just be a minute...hey, you're on TV."

"What?" Kevin looked up, blinking. The local news anchor smiled vapidly at them, pitching the stories coming up at 11, and sure enough the little box over her shoulder showed Kevin on the steps of the police station. "Oh."

"Why didn't you tell me you did a press conference?" Scotty grabbed the remote and turned up the volume. "You know I like to see you on TV."

"Scotty," Kevin said, sitting up and reaching to take the remote from him, "really, it isn't--"

"We'll have more on the tragic shooting of Reverend Jason McCallister, and the reaction of his brother, Senator Robert McCallister, at eleven," the anchor said, and Kevin let his hand fall to the couch in defeat. "Now, back to Seinfeld."

Scotty sat still for a moment, then turned off the TV. "I heard about the shooting at the market. I...I didn't know it was Jason, though."

"The name wasn't released until the press conference." Kevin rubbed the bridge of his nose. "That's...well, that's why it was such a long day."

"God, Kevin." Scotty's arms went around Kevin's waist, pulling him back close, and Kevin dug his fingers sharply into his palm to keep from pulling away. "I'm so sorry."

"Robert was...well, obviously. He went home at noon and I had to coordinate the rest of it. So it was a lot."

"You know I don't mean I'm sorry about _that_."

"What else is there to be sorry about?" He shook his head and disentangled himself from Scotty's arms, getting to his feet. "Everything else was a long time ago. Gone and over with. Dead and buried." His voice caught on the last phrase, realizing what he was saying even as he said it. "You know what, I don't think I'm that hungry. I'm sorry. Will it keep till tomorrow?"

"Kevin, baby..."

Kevin shook his head again and held up his hands, and by some miracle that actually did bring Scotty up short. "Please. I'm fine. I'm just really, really tired, and...and I don't want to talk. I'm sorry, I know we're supposed to talk, but right now I...I can't."

Scotty's expression froze, and Kevin's heart sank as he realized he'd hit the forbidden, land-mine-riddled sector of their relationship. Then Scotty nodded slightly, concern overwriting the blankness of his features. Kevin gave a shaky exhale of relief. "Of course."

"It really smells delicious."

"Don't worry about the food."

"I think I'm going to take a shower and go to bed."

Scotty nodded again and Kevin hurried out of the room. One of the press guys would get the eleven o'clock news and he could analyze it in the morning. The morning was more than soon enough.  
**  
Nora frowned and took her glasses off. "But we have to do _something_."

"No, Mother, he made it very clear that he doesn't want anyone to do anything." Kitty shrugged, folding her arms tightly over her chest. "Frankly, I'll be surprised if he lets _me_ go to the funeral."

"He's just hurting, Kitty, he doesn't mean it."

"I'm pretty sure he does." Kitty looked down at the table, her fingers sliding restlessly along the edge. "I'm not used to being frozen out of my own house, but if I hadn't left to come over here I was going to need a parka."

"Leave him alone," Kevin said, rubbing his forehead with one hand and refilling his wine glass with the other. "He just lost his brother, Kitty, I think he's entitled to a couple of days of less than perfect husbandhood."

"I know that, Kevin, but he won't let me in at _all_. He acts like I'm insulting him by offering sympathy."

Kevin shrugged and took a long drink. "If he wants space, leave him alone."

"I'm _worried_ about him."

"I think we all know Robert well enough to know he isn't going to do anything drastic. So leave him alone." Kevin put his glass down a little harder than necessary. "You all have to eat more, by the way. Scotty sent over that whole pan of...whatever it is, and I don't want to insult him by taking any of it home."

"It's good, bro," Justin muttered, glancing anxiously between him and Kitty. "Um, how are you holding up, by the way?"

"I'm fine." Kevin finished the rest of his drink. "Thanks for asking, but I'm fine. I got to spend my day turning down press requests for access to the funeral. There's going to be a horde of bottom-feeders with cameras there, but we can keep them behind a barricade, at least."

"What kind of distance did you get for the barricade?" Kitty asked, her eyes narrowing slightly.

"Fifty feet."

"Couldn't get a hundred?"

"He's a Senator, not the Pope."

"Are you handling the other arrangements, Kitty?" Nora took the wine bottle away from in front of Kevin and carried it off to the kitchen. Kevin rolled his eyes and switched his glass with Saul's. "Flowers, the service, the reception? Is there anything you need help with?"

"The church is handling it all, actually." Kitty tucked her hair back behind her ears, waving her hand helplessly. "There's absolutely nothing for me to do but knock on the door to Robert's study once an hour and make sure he's still there."

"Leave him _alone_," Kevin snapped, glaring at everyone when they turned to stare at him. "What? Come on, how would any of us react if we were grieving and Kitty kept hovering all the time?"

"I think someone's projecting," Sarah muttered, raising her eyebrows meaningfully.

"Shut up, Sarah. I'm not projecting. I'm just...God, you know, I'm not Robert's biggest fan, but I seem to be the only one here with any sympathy for him."

"Well, you're the other one who actually had anything to do with Jason," Justin pointed out. "Except yours was more like...um, boning him."

"Justin!" Nora said.

Justin threw his hands up. "What? I'm just saying, Kevin's not exactly being all selfless here! He has ulterior motives."

"That's not an ulterior motive, you idiot," Tommy said. "Unless you mean you think he wants to score points with Robert, or something."

"Okay." Kevin shoved his chair back from the table. "I'm done."

"Oh, no, please," Kitty said, glaring at him. "Tell me more about how I have no sympathy for my husband."

"All I'm saying is that you need to stop smothering him and let him deal with this his own way."

"I'm _worried_ about him, Kevin, and he's shutting me out."

"This isn't about you, Kitty! It isn't about how his feelings _make you feel_. He's the one who lost somebody. Somebody who _mattered_ to him. And he has to deal with that, his own way, and if the way he deals is uncomfortable for you, that's actually _your problem_, not his." Kevin took a ragged breath and realized he had been shouting, and that he was now standing, and that everyone was staring at him. "I have to go."

"Dude," Justin said, "are you sure you're--"

"If you ask me if I'm all right, I swear to God I will..." Suddenly the idea of threatening his little brother was too hard. He shook his head and looked away. "I have to go. Finish the dinner, _please_, it was important to Scotty. I have to go. I'll call you tomorrow, Mom."

"Kevin," Saul said quietly, and Kevin paused for just an instant. Saul reached out and touched his arm just above the elbow, so lightly Kevin could hardly feel it, but it still sent a sharp shiver through him.

"I'll call you tomorrow," he said again, and left.  
**  
He didn't know where he was going until he got there.

Well, maybe he did. If he hadn't had some idea of where he was going, he probably wouldn't have stopped at a liquor store on the way.

Nobody answered when he knocked on the door, but he knew where Kitty kept the spare key. The house was dark and silent; he respected that and made his way by touch, from the front door all the way back to the study that overlooked the back lawn.

"Kitty, go away, _please_," came the response when he knocked. He didn't answer, just twisted the knob and found it unlocked. Kitty probably would've respected _that_, too, but Kevin walked right in.

Robert was huddled on the small couch by the window, his elbows on his knees and his head bowed. His hair was a rumpled mess, his glasses bent, and he was wearing the same dress shirt and suit pants from the day before.

"I said go away." His voice was rough with exhaustion and, Kevin suspected, tears that had spent themselves already. "Please, honey, I know you mean well but I really just..."

"Not Kitty." Kevin held up the bottle from the liquor store. "Me and Laguvulin. Scoot over, and are there any glasses you didn't break?"

Robert blinked at the pile of broken glass at the foot of the far wall. "There's a coffee mug on my desk."

"Just one?"

"I think." Kevin moved toward the desk, but Robert continued. "But I don't want you to stay."

"One drink."

"Get out, Kevin. I don't want to drink with you, I don't want to talk to you, I don't want to see you. I don't want to see _anyone_. I just want to be left alone."

"Believe me, I'm not here to talk." Kevin poured the mug full of whiskey and carried it to the couch, then handed Robert the bottle. "One drink."

Robert looked at him with cold, unreadable eyes, and for a moment Kevin thought his brother-in-law might hit him with the bottle. He almost welcomed the idea; a fight would clear his head a hell of a lot better than the whiskey was going to, and a little physical pain would be a distraction from the emotions he wasn't supposed to be having. But Robert just took a sharp breath and a long drink from the bottle, looking away, and Kevin sat down beside him and took a drink of his own.

They didn't talk for a long time, just sat and drank and squinted against the dark as if there might be something there they could see if they looked just a little bit harder. Robert refilled Kevin's mug at one point, and then again. The whiskey stopped burning down Kevin's throat and started to taste sweet.

Robert drew a slow, ragged breath. "When Jay was seven, my dog died." Kevin glanced sideways at him. Robert took another sip from the bottle. "I was at school, and the dog was old, and my parents had him put down before I could get home. I was upset, and Jason told me not to be, because Titan would wait for us in heaven." He shook his head and took another, longer drink. "I've been thinking about that all fucking day."

"That sounds like something he would say."

"It sounds like something a seven-year-old would say. Any seven-year-old. Why am I not thinking about...about something that happened after he had an actual _personality_? Why am I not thinking about _him_?" Robert's hand tightened around the bottle, and Kevin reached over and took it from him before he could throw it.

"You're not forgetting already, Robert."

"How do you know? How do you know what I'm doing?"

"You're in shock." Kevin topped off his mug and set the bottle on the floor between his feet. "Brain goes all weird when you're in shock."

Robert sat silently for a moment, then reached over to grab the bottle again. "Maybe."

"Kitty said the church was handling all the arrangements."

"Yeah. I don't have to do a thing but show up. I don't even have to give a eulogy if I don't want to." Robert took another swallow, closing his eyes tight. "You know, the...the...the guy from the police. Whatever he's called. He told me I was kind of lucky, because Jason's face is okay, so there can be an open casket."

Kevin looked down into the mug. "Wow."

"I don't think I want an open casket. He's not...on display." He took another unsteady breath. "I go back and forth between being angry and..."

Kevin glanced at him. "Sad?"

Robert nodded slightly, the corner of his mouth curving up in something like a smile. "That doesn't seem like a big enough word."

"It really doesn't."

Robert looked at the bottle, then lifted it, tilting his head back and swallowing down the rest of the whiskey in one long go. Kevin winced and glanced around for a trash can, suspecting that was going to come up again just as fast, but Robert just set the bottle carefully on the floor and buried his face in his hands.

Kevin touched his shoulder. "Robert?"

"He was my family. My whole...all that was left." Robert's voice was tight, choked with anguish, and Kevin pulled his hand back like it had been burned.

"I'm sorry."

Robert shrugged and pressed his hands harder against his eyes, then raised his head, blinking the tears away. "It's just very strange to suddenly find yourself alone in the world."

"You've got your kids. And Kitty. And, well...us. All of us. We've always got room for one more."

Robert shook his head and gave Kevin another wobbly, watery half-smile. "That's...really not much of a comfort, I'm sorry, Kevin. I know what you mean, but it's just not the same at all."

"I know," Kevin said softly, setting his mug down on the floor. "But...but it's something."

Robert took a shaky breath, then another, and a thin, helpless sound escaped his mouth. Kevin tugged him close, putting his arms around him. "I'm sorry," he whispered, tears starting to fall from his eyes. "God, it isn't fair, I'm sorry."

"I'm _alone_," Robert sobbed.

"You're not," Kevin said, shaking his head. "Not completely." Tears were still running down his face, but he could still think and function. His grief was real, but less, compared to Robert's, and he suddenly understood why he'd come to the house. The best expression of his loss, and the way to discharge the debt he still owed Jason, was to help his brother.

So he didn't leave, he didn't even move as Robert cried himself into exhaustion and then asleep. He carefully settled Robert there on the couch and dug his phone out of his pocket.

"Come home," he said, when Kitty answered. "He shouldn't be alone."

"Before you were telling me to leave him alone," she said with dull irritation, but he could hear her fumbling for her keys.

"He's past that part now," Kevin said, looking down at Robert on the couch. "Now he's in the next part, and he needs you. So come home."

He hung up with Kitty and stared at his phone for a moment before punching in the buttons, texting Scotty. For a moment, he didn't know what to say, but then he did. It was simple. He'd done what Jason would have wanted and helped Robert. Now it was his turn.

_Come home? I need you._


End file.
